Jacobie Morgan had the same message for Georgiana coach Kirk Norris all season.

“He just kept telling me to smile,” Norris said. “I’m smiling now. This is one of the happiest days of my life.”

Morgan is a big reason why.

With two key teammates on the bench with five fouls, the junior scored 20 points and led the Panthers to a 55-44 overtime victory over Covenant Christian, earning Georgiana the Class 1A state basketball championship.

It’s the first team title in school history.

“It’s the first one, but it’s not the last one,” Morgan said. “It does mean a lot knowing we made history.”

It wasn’t easy and, at times, it didn’t look likely.

The Panthers (28-3) trailed by as 14 in the first half with Covenant big men Trey Kellogg and Jalen Chandler looking unstoppable at times. However, they both fouled out in regulation as did teammates Isaiah Patrick and Tucker McWilliams.

“I don’t think I’ve ever coached a game in 11 years where I had four guys foul out,” Covenant coach Bret Waldrep said. “It was a challenge for sure.”

Georgiana also lost a pair of key players – Kaveon Miles and Nasir Cheatham – to fouls. That left Morgan to be the team’s main facilitator in a tight game.

“I thought he did a tremendous job of stepping up and taking control of the situation in the biggest moment of his career,” Norris said.

With his team trailing 40-35, Morgan scored the Panthers’ final seven points of regulation. He tied the game with a free throw with 4.4 seconds remaining and had a chance to win it with a second, but that one hit the front of the rim.

“I knew it would win the game and I really wanted to hit it,” Morgan said. “I couldn’t get it out of my head when we got back to the huddle, but the guys told me it would be OK, that we would finish in overtime.”

Regulation ended at 42-42.

The news got much worse for Covenant in the opening minute of overtime when senior Trace Walker, who had played only sparingly this year due to injuries, suffered an apparent broken leg and had to be carted off the court.

“I hated it for Trace,” Waldrep said. “He had injury struggles all year, but he wanted to play. That’s what he kept telling me when he was laying there. He said, ‘I wanted to go in.’ We don’t know the extent at this point. We will go check on him and go from there.”

With Walker injured and four guys on the bench with five fouls, Waldrep had to turn to a pair of eighth-graders to join starters Andrew Brackin and Colin Thompson on the court for the final minutes. It wasn’t nearly enough.

Georgiana outscored Covenant 13-2 in overtime to grab the win. Morgan punctuated the victory with a dunk just after the buzzer, sparking a wild celebration on the floor.

“I’m just glad we proved we can actually win one,” Cheatham said. “Now we have to come back next year and do it again.”

Covenant (26-9) was trying to win its third title in a row.

“I’m obviously disappointed in the way it ended, but I’m not disappointed with the season,” Waldrep said. “We had a great year and I’m proud of the guys for the work they put in. I told them that I didn’t know if we had it in us this year, but they proved me wrong.”

Star of the game: Morgan was the MVP and deservedly so. In addition to his 20 points, he also had 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals.

Stat sheet: Georgiana – Cheatham went 10-of-10 from the line and finished with 12 points and 5 rebounds. Jaden Stallworth had 11 rebounds. Covenant – Kellogg and Chandler both finished with 15 points. Kellogg had 7 rebounds. Chandler had 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks.

By the numbers: The teams combined for 53 fouls. … Georgiana was 30-of-42 from the foul line. Covenant was 12-of-17. … The teams combined to go 1-of-18 from 3-point range. … Georgiana won despite shooting just 26.7 percent from the field (12-of-45). … The Panthers won the rebounding battle 39-30.

Did you know? Georgiana has just one senior on its roster, forward Marques Payton.

Coachspeak:

I’ve had some really good teams, and we seemed to always run up against someone we couldn’t beat. These guys? I don’t know what to say about them. They listen to me holler and scream all the time and keep doing what they are supposed to do. They’ve been telling me since sixth grade that we were going to win a state title, and tonight they did.” – Norris.

They said it:

“I pray the young man will be OK. It’s not something you want to see anytime, especially in a game like this. We had to try and get back and get focused. They knew what they had to do. They have good heads on their shoulders. They knew the situation and the time remaining.” – Norris on the injury to Covenant’s Trace Walker.

“Obviously, I should have tried something else because it didn’t work. I’m proud of them. Two of the guys who went in were eighth-graders going in for overtime of a state championship game and trying to help us pull it out. I thought they did pretty well. Georgiana just had too much for us. They had more left out there than we did.” – Waldrep on the strategy with five players unavailable.

“I’m proud of my teammates, really my family. A lot of people thought we weren’t going to be here this year. I guess we proved them wrong. We just came up one game short.” – Chandler.